i have always thought of jerome peterson most fondly ever
since i haunted sokoji and tassajara summers in the sixties and lived at the
page street center in 1971-1972. jerome was from lake benton, minnesota,
which amazed me. i'm from minnesota also, my roots in the prairie norwegian
traditions of my father's people, farm people. so i saw in jerome something
very familiar - and yet strange. here he was at zen center, of all places, a
man then in middle age, while i was still young and experimental. we never
spoke much, altho we talked about lake benton. sometimes he joined philip
whalen, alan marlowe, myself and others playing hooky on weekend work
periods after lecture to go down toward market street to a coffee shop where
we got sweet rolls and such. he was physically awkward, yet somehow
perfectly serene in his skin. he puzzled me, intrigued me, and i liked being
around him. when i think of him i think of lonely lake benton, minnesota,
and when i think of lonely lake benton, minnesota, i think of jerome.

Once when I was living in an apartment across from 300 Page
street Michael Gilmore and Jerome and I were sitting on the floor having
some sort of a meal. Jerome was looking at the advertising in the Chronicle.
Michael asked Jerome what he was looking for. Jerome said that he wanted to
buy a trunk. Someone asked if it was for the bodies of the young women who
he lured into his room at Z.C. Jerome said, "No it is for their zories."

I always remember that when I think of Jerome, and now
Michael has also joined the ancestors.

********

From Elizabeth Sawyer:

I sent Baker-roshi the account of the exchange between him
and Jerome at the 1973 shosan ceremony. He sent back a nice reply. Said that
Jerome was the first person he ordained. Here is the quote from a shosan
ceremony circa 1973 Jerome was his anja:

In 1969 I was living in a huge ‘hippie palace’, as we called
it, at California and Scott.

I discovered Sokoji and began sitting there one Saturday,
not even knowing what meditation was, and did the whole morning with Mel
Weitzman as the attendant new priest at the work period and the Zazen
instruction after the mornings service was over.

I began sitting every morning and immediately found my self
walking back into the same neighborhood area on California St. with Jerome
every morning.

I immediately liked his big gawky self and easy accepting
way with me.

We would chat about Zazen or work or just walk along
together.

Over the next 40 years we always remembered and acknowledged
each other when crossing paths and it has been a few years since I last saw
him.